Some NaArMaMo graphics

[kerravonsen]

Today I played around with GIMP, trying to make interesting star-like things, and doing LOTS of tweaking tweaking tweaking. It's kind of hard to stop tweaking once you start, because you can never be sure that the next image won't be better than the previous one.

Comments

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I like the negative-space stars of David with the spirals, whirls, and moire effects!

[kerravonsen]

(ooh, pretty stained-glass icon)

I'm tossing up between #3 and #6 as my favourites.

I was trying to think up a sort of logo for "Infinitudes" (that's the name I'm leaning toward) and I thought that something with stars would be fitting. Hence all the different stars. It was partly prompted by discovering Custom Laser Etched tags which would be cool to be able to attach to my work if/when I had an actual Etsy store... That's why the original-size images are not small, even though the end result if it would be etched on a tag would be 1 inch diameter or less. So I've been trying for something which looks good really tiny as well as large.

The other thing that's difficult is trying to figure out how many points in the star! I don't really want to do five-pointed stars because they are associated with the Occult in many people's minds. So that leaves me flipping between four, six, and seven.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Those tags are very cool!

If you go for 4 points, maybe make one longer. 6 and 7 would be cool though. One place we go to has 8-pointed stars on the backs of their chairs which can be drawn with one line, like a 5-pointer, and got me experimenting to see if what I suspected was true - and it was: the one-line things applies to any stars with Fibonacci number points. /maths geek

Oh and if you don't do 2 triangles, a 6-pointer won't be a star of David, like those in the last 2 rows. :-)

[kerravonsen]

If you go for 4 points, maybe make one longer.

You mean like a twinkly "cross" star? When I see those, I think of Christmas cards.

Oh and if you don't do 2 triangles, a 6-pointer won't be a star of David, like those in the last 2 rows. :-)

The six-pointed stars (and the seven-pointed one) were done with GIMP brushes; the ones in GIMP 2.8 where you can say how many points and the size and the "aspect ratio" which I have no idea what they mean by that, but it seems to control sharpness of the points. The stars in the last two rows, I made a different brush, one with sharper points. It just so happens that the first brush I used had less-sharp points, hence its Star-of-David look; I didn't actually make it out of two triangles. It is a pretty pretty star though. But I don't want people to think I am doing a Jewish thing any more than I want them to think I am making Christmas cards; not appropriate. I don't want to misuse a religious symbol! Advice?

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

6 points are fine, if not triangular, i.e. go with sharper more acute points. Or 7 or 8, but that they get a bit busy.

I really like the negative space in the swirly patterns. Would they print them in a mix of colours so they look iridescent?

[kerravonsen]

Would they print them in a mix of colours so they look iridescent?

You mean the custom laser-engraved tags? They seem to be able to get a rainbowy effect with some of their laser-engraved stainless steel but I don't know how they do it, and they don't seem to be offering that as a custom option. What I would be doing if I did it would be getting laser-engraved Anodized Aluminium tags. With those, they use their standard Anodized Aluminium tags, which they punch out in-house from strips of Anodized Aluminium. For the custom-engraving they then engrave the tags with a laser. The laser removes the coloured surface coating, and reveals the untreated aluminium underneath. That means that if you want a dramatic contrast, you would select dark-coloured tags, and for a more subtle effect, light-coloured tags.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

That would look very effective, esp with your crafts.

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

I soooooo know what you mean about tweaking,I sometimes have to tell myself off when an icon gets too tweaked...